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8 Signs a Company is doing Employee Advocacy Wrong

By Brian Fanzo,

December 1, 2014
Employe8keys for linkedine Advocacy might be a buzzword that many leaders are investing in and trying to better understand but we’re far from making it a trend that makes a difference in today’s business world.  The idea of a social employee isn’t something a brand or leader needs to authorize because no matter the industry or business, employees are active on social if the brand knows it or not.  The key is empowering, training and encouraging employees to collaborate, share, build communities and help amplify the brands content, culture and story.

In my recent post “Employee Advocacy, The Secret to Social Business Success!” I highlighted that employee advocacy is essential for success with social business initiatives such as social selling, influencer marketing and customer service.  Although some companies are embracing this fact too many leaders and brands are going through the motions or attempting to automate employee advocacy to the point of eliminating the employee element completely.  This takes the social out of social business and in my opinion does more harm than good.

Here are 8 signs a company is doing employee advocacy wrong:

  1. Leaders are talking about “Employee Advocacy” as a project or task that they aren’t a part of or have no active part in.
  2. Your have social accounts with employees names on them but they’re being managed and automated by your social media team.
  3. All employees share the exact some post at the exact same time.
  4. The only content that your social employee accounts share are advertising, marketing and sales content from the brand.
  5. Vanity Metrics and social media measurements like number of posts, klout score or number of followers are being incentivized and rewarded above valuable social actions like engagement, collaboration and community involvement.
  6. Employee Advocacy is a task or job assigned to one department or one leader instead of it being a company wide change that creates new experiences while redefining the culture and company philosophy.
  7. Employee Advocacy is setup to only benefit the brand without an investment in the employees personal brand, establishing managers as thought leaders or training employees to contribute content, insight and have a say in the social strategy.
  8. Software and company politics are blamed for the programs failure instead of focusing on the culture and communication changes needed prior to implementing and social business tool.
Employee Advocacy is difficult to implement for many because it requires change across every department and trusting, transparent, employee focused culture.  Although these changes are difficult if brands attempt to find an easy button or are currently implementing any of these 8 actions above not only are they wasting their time but they’re driving themselves further away from becoming the social business they hope to be.
Brian Fanzo

Brian Fanzo is a partner and Chief Digital Strategist at Broadsuite Media Group (BMG). His focus is on helping companies utilize new technology like mobile, analytics, and cloud computing to be more productive. He is also an expert at working with audiences and brands who want to learn more about using social media and content marketing (including rich media content), to more effectively reach, inform, educate, and connect with their audiences and prospect bases. Brian is also an expert on the topic of Millennials. He speaks on this topic and works with organizations helping them understand the Millennial mindset, what motivates them, how to prepare your organization for the future workforce, and a myriad of other topics related to a new generation of leaders.

Brian is passionate about teaching change and he focuses on doing this in his work with brands as both an influencer and advisor, and he’s also a sought-after speaker and multi-media creator. In addition to contributing regularly to MillennialCEO, Brian co-hosts two weekly Twitter chats, #SbizHour and #CloudTalk, as well as co-hosting a a weekly podcast called SMACtalk. You can find Brian on Twitter@isocialfanz, or on LinkedIn or Google+.

Tagged:brian fanzoemployee advocacyEmployee Advocacy Done Wrongemployee advocacy mistakesemployee advocacy social buisnessEmployee EngagementEmployeesHRisocialfanzSocial BusinessSocial Employeessocial mediawhat is employee advocacy

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